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"Please open window" is a sign I saw on a London bus. What rule let the author omit an article? It was written right on the window, so I'm wondering why they didn't write "Please open the window".

gotube
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musialmi
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    This is a signage convention to save space, here in the U.S. I would always say "Please open the window" if possible. – JosephDoggie Jul 25 '23 at 13:51
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    @JosephDoggie Since the US is a much bigger country we have more room for articles. – Azor Ahai -him- Jul 25 '23 at 16:35
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    You mean "without article"? ;-) – Peter - Reinstate Monica Jul 25 '23 at 22:29
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    " It was written right on the window, so I'm wondering why they didn't write 'Please open the window'". That reminds me of the old joke about a kibbitzer. If brevity was the sole consideration "open" would do. – Simon Crase Jul 26 '23 at 01:10
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    @JosephDoggie ditto in UK. – nigel222 Jul 26 '23 at 17:26
  • Perhaps the writer was a Yorkshireman..? Interesting that 'keep away from children' is maybe different from 'keep away from the children'. – Tim Jul 27 '23 at 08:17
  • Page 12 of this PDF if you wanted an image of the "offending" sign https://documents.manchester.ac.uk/display.aspx?DocID=57171 – Martin Smith Jul 27 '23 at 11:17
  • To answer the question“what rule?”, it was most likely a rule in the signage manual of Transport for London (TfL), the city’s transport operator. That manual would have set out a method of abbreviating messages where space is limited, or a list of standardised wordings for various messages you see on signs in transport vehicles. TfL has a permanent design office to develop its advertising, information and signage, and ensure that signage is consistently worded across their services. – KrisW Jul 27 '23 at 15:24

3 Answers3

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Signs and notices of this kind are often written in "headlinese," an abbreviated style that omits articles, forms of to be, and other unnecessary words. Similar examples include signs like "keep off grass" and "road ends."

alphabet
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    You called it "headlinese" which means that it's also used in headers in newspapers and in titles of articles online, doesn't it? By omitting forms of "to be" do you mean that, for example, instead of "The water is boling" or "The food is ready" it would write "Water boiling", "Food ready"? – musialmi Jul 25 '23 at 05:59
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    Yes, "water boiling" although it would be more normal write "boiling water" (as headlinese for "this is boiling water"). It is quite hard to get headlinese right, and many attempts by non-native speakers end up sounding like double-dutch. – James K Jul 25 '23 at 06:24
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    @JamesK But musialmi has intuited correctly the general rule, which is that the word order does not change; it's just that bits are missed out. So in a text to your impatient wife or husband who is waiting upstairs for their tea, one might text "water boiling, almost there!", because it's short for "the water is boiling", but as you say, in your example "boiling water" is better because it stands for "this is boiling water". – Araucaria - Not here any more. Jul 25 '23 at 09:51
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    @Araucaria-Nothereanymore. Of course, headlinese can sometimes be ambiguous. In a text message, "boiing water" would likely be short for "I'm boiling water". – Barmar Jul 25 '23 at 15:23
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    It's worth noting that we almost never speak this way; we only use this style on signs, headlines and other places where space is limited or when we don't feel like writing things all the way out – T Hummus Jul 25 '23 at 17:05
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    Classic example of headlinese, from a UK newspaper: "FOG IN CHANNEL; CONTINENT CUT OFF." – keshlam Jul 25 '23 at 17:38
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    I've always heard this referred to as "telegraphic style" – MPW Jul 25 '23 at 19:45
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    I used to write emails in "telegraphic style" or telegraphese, and this was not a good idea. – JosephDoggie Jul 25 '23 at 20:35
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    @THummus: In speech, it's common for some words to be squished to practically nothing. The sentences "I can do that" and "I can't do that" would usually be pronounced "Icon do that" and "I can to that". Signage sometimes squishes words to practically nothing too, but more often than not to hide things the authors don't really want people to notice, e.g "PRICES SLASHED with select products MORE THAN 90% OFF!" – supercat Jul 25 '23 at 21:48
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    @keshlam As a New Yorker, I'll offer up one of our own classics: "Headless body in topless bar". – MarcInManhattan Jul 26 '23 at 02:59
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    @supercat Yes, we certainly squish words and phrases together when speaking. But the patterns for such squishing are not the same as the patterns for omitting words on signs and headlines – T Hummus Jul 26 '23 at 04:44
  • I can't find documentation now, but many years ago in a local tabloid I saw "Woman cleared of diamond ring link". (It was not about a divorce.) – Karl Knechtel Jul 26 '23 at 08:02
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    @supercat I think the main audible difference between "can" and "can't" is usually not any consonant sound - it's the vowel. "can" often has a weak, reduced vowel, "can't" is always stressed and has a different vowel sound. – bdsl Jul 26 '23 at 12:16
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    @bdsl Yep, at least in American English. See Geoff Lindsey. – alphabet Jul 26 '23 at 12:18
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    BTW, the generic term for "ignorable" words is stop words. – dan04 Jul 26 '23 at 17:08
  • @musialmi Another classic example of this headline style: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Stars_%26_Stripes_%26_Hitler_Dead2.jpg – Boann Jul 27 '23 at 04:53
  • @THummus: Worth challenging the idea that the dropping of syntactically "necessary" words in everyday speech is rare, in my opinion. Think you'll find it's actually quite commonplace in informal, especially short-form, written, speech. – Will Jul 27 '23 at 13:09
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    @Will I maintain that we rarely speak this way. But I agree with you that in casual writing (texts between friends, for example) dropping of words is quite common. – T Hummus Jul 27 '23 at 13:31
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    @Will I guess I should acknowledge that we do drop words in casual spoken English as well, but I think it sounds different that this kind of headline/sign style. For example, someone might say "beer's in the fridge" instead of "The beer is in the fridge". But I don't think anyone would say "beer in fridge", although that is something you might write over text – T Hummus Jul 27 '23 at 13:35
  • @THummus Depends on the boundaries imposed on what's considered the "spoken" language I suppose; the sentence, "Unexpected item in bagging area." must surely now be one of the most frequently heard as an exact formulation out loud, at least here in the UK :) – Will Jul 27 '23 at 14:20
  • @Will yeah that's a good point. Language is complicated – T Hummus Jul 27 '23 at 15:03
  • @Will But that is not really spoken language – it’s a machine reading out an essentially written line of headlinese. Nobody would ever naturally say, “Unexpected item in bagging area” in natural, spoken English. The same goes for, “Stand clear, doors closing” and similar warnings on public transportation systems. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Jul 28 '23 at 11:19
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An older term for this kind of writing is “telegraphic style.” Telegrams charged by the letter, so people would send messages as short as possible to save money. Businesses, such as banks and brokerages, would have codebooks full of abbreviations to save money on telegrams. Often, these were important instructions. SEND MONEY would have been a typical example.

This especially became famous as a style of communications between military units, where the concern wasn’t cost, but messages were often sent in code, or by a very inconvenient mechanism like signal flag or beacons. In WWII in particular, codebreakers often worked by looking for a common word that appeared in most messages, like EINS in German, so avoiding words like THE could make a code harder to break.

I personally wouldn’t call that example “headlinese,” because headlines normally aren’t commands like that. But newspaper headlines were similarly terse and clipped. This was so a print newspaper could make the letters in the headline as big and catchy as possible.

Davislor
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This kind of sign has meaning when attached to a specific window. It does not need the article because it relates to the window it is attached to. The same for "Keep off Grass" only works on a sign "in the grass".

It is not something we would say or write in other situations.

As a native speaker that is how I interpret that aspect of the grammar; other grammarians can give their views.

Brian Tompsett - 汤莱恩
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    No, no, no, no. "Keep off grass" works perfectly well on a t-shirt too, or on a poster at a police station. ;) – Araucaria - Not here any more. Jul 25 '23 at 22:09
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    I disagree that "It does not need the article because it relates to the window it is attached to." For example, a "Beware of dog" sign doesn't need an article, even though it's not attached to a dog. "For sale by owner" refers to an owner that may not be anywhere nearby. – LarsH Jul 25 '23 at 23:39
  • Granted, these signs typically do refer to a specific noun; otherwise, there wouldn't be a "the" article to omit in the first place. I'm trying to think of a sign that would be interpreted as missing an "a/an" article, and I can't think of any right now. – LarsH Jul 25 '23 at 23:41
  • @LarsH Beware of dog = Beware of the dog in this area. It makes sense because it's posted in or adjacent to the area. For sale by owner = This item/piece of property is for sale by its owner. The sign is attached in or adjacent to the property or perhaps adjacent to a photo of the property. – user71659 Jul 26 '23 at 03:10
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    @user71659 Agreed. Signs make sense because they talk about something whose relevance is clear from context. But this is not why the article can be dropped. When someone says orally "That property is for sale by the owner," the reason that they include the definite article is not because the context is lacking or the referent is unclear, but because we don't usually speak in "headlinese" / telegraphic style. – LarsH Jul 26 '23 at 13:42
  • Re: a sign where the indefinite "a/an" article is omitted: "BABY ON BOARD" (on a car) means "[There is a] baby on board," not "[The] baby [is] on board." The indefinite article suggests that the sign is not referring to a specific baby, at least not one known to the reader, but simply letting the reader know that an (indeterminate) baby is present. – LarsH Jul 26 '23 at 13:49
  • @LarsH it also does not mean "baby on [a] board". But it could - and would work as a punchline to a (dark) joke. For example, if Jesus had been crucified as an infant... – Wyck Jul 26 '23 at 13:54
  • @LarsH Correction: "Baby On Board" means a baby may be present. It's not like the car owner is required to always carry a baby with them while driving. – Dmitry Grigoryev Jul 26 '23 at 14:55
  • @Dmitry I agree. But I think you're talking about a different level of "meaning." "Baby on board" is not telegraphic style for "A baby may be on board." Rather, it's within accepted usage that "Baby on Board" doesn't have to be true at every moment, just often enough to justify the sign. – LarsH Jul 26 '23 at 22:47
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    @LarsH: I'd say that "Caution – Risk of explosion" implies There is the risk of AN explosion, not There is the risk of THE explosion. I'm not fully sure about "risk", though: both implications – either THE risk or A risk – seem to be possible. And there's "Face shield must be worn", which also implies the indefinite article. – Schmuddi Jul 27 '23 at 14:40
  • This doesn't change any of the above, except to add an example. I saw a road sign yesterday that said "BRIDGE OUT" (next line) "7.5 MILES AHEAD". So this is an example where a noun (BRIDGE) whose article is omitted is physically far removed from the sign. – LarsH Jul 29 '23 at 16:32